EU: Sharks now need protection from overfishing

EU: sharks now need protection from overfishing
February 6, 2009

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5670588.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5670588.ece?print=yes&r\
andnum=1233915046786

It could spell the end of rock salmon or huss being sold at the chip shop.

The European Commission, presenting its first plan to limit all types of shark
fishing, said yesterday that it had to act to stop several types of shark being
pushed towards extinction. The rock salmon often available in British chip
shops, and sometimes sold as huss, is normally spiny dogfish, an increasingly
rare type of shark.

Joe Borg, the EU Fisheries Commissioner, said: “The latest information we have
confirms that human beings are now a far bigger threat to sharks than sharks
ever were to us.”

He said that a surge in demand from Asia for shark fins for soup, and from the
cosmetics industry for shark liver oil, had led to at least a third of shark
species being overfished.

The proposals are likely to lead to a tightening of the six-year EU ban on the
practice of “finning”, in which fins are cut from a shark and the carcass
thrown back into the sea. In future, vessels may be forced to land sharks with
their fins attached and only remove them once ashore to enable tighter controls
on the numbers caught.

The plan, which must be approved by EU governments and the European Parliament,
would extend many of the features of the common fisheries policy to sharks,
skates and rays, which have been largely unregulated. It follows moves by
European governments last December to limit catches of two types of shark —
spurdog and porbeagle — for the first time.

In the past two decades global catches of sharks have increased from 600,000
tonnes a year to more than 800,000. The EU fleet takes about 100,000 tonnes a
year.

The reductions may also lead to far-reaching changes for Britain’s fishing
fleet. Britain catches more deep-sea shark than any other European country,
harvesting liver oil for cosmetics.

Spain is the largest exporter of shark fins to the seemingly insatiable Hong
Kong market, while Italy is the main consumer of shark meat in Europe and its
second biggest importer, according to a report by the international marine
conservation organisation Oceana.

Powdered shark cartilage, which the species has instead of bones, has surged in
popularity as a health supplement and shark skin has become a prestige leather
product.

“Proper measures to protect the most vulnerable species of sharks must be put
in place and must be properly controlled and enforced,” Mr Borg said. These
include creating temporary exclusion zones to protect young or reproducing
sharks and clearer rules on fishing equipment to be used to reduce unwanted
catches. Emphasis will also be placed on better catch reporting, more investment
in data collection and greater use of observers to monitor fishing activities.

While welcoming the initiative, environmental groups were critical of the lack
of detail and specific measures in the plan. Rebecca Greenberg, of Oceana
Europe, said: “At the very least, we were hoping for measures that accurately
regulated the amounts of shark bodies and fins that could be landed, in order to
weed out illegal finning practices.” Oceana’s founder, the American actor
Ted Danson, has previously criticised the British appetite for rock salmon,
which he believes has nearly wiped out once plentiful spiny dogfish stocks from
our waters.

Aaron McLoughlin, the head of the WWF European marine programme, said: “Sharks
are slow-growing and produce relatively small numbers of young. Many of these
species are already threatened with extinction.”

Mr Borg admitted yesterday that it would be years before the protective measures
were fully in place, as new legislation has to be approved. “The objective is
to have the actions in place around 2012-13,” he said.

The initiative has won some early support in the European Parliament. Struan
Stevenson, the Conservatives’ fisheries spokesman, welcomed it as a first
step. He said: “Unfortunately, films like Jaws have created a stigma
surrounding sharks that often prevents them gaining the attention and sympathy
they deserve. They are a vital component of maintaining a balanced ecosystem in
our oceans.”